


The Witnesses

by WritingIsMyGame



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-15 22:43:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5803165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingIsMyGame/pseuds/WritingIsMyGame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am intending for this to be a series of sketches of different events that lead Ichabod and Abbie to where they are currently.  A little AU, but mostly inline with the canon.  And I’m very much an Ichabbie shipper as end game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Watchman

**Author's Note:**

> I’m a late-to-the-party fan of this show. I am a long-time watcher of Bones, and I thought I’d check out Sleepy Hollow because of that crossover, and found myself on a massive Sleepy Hollow watching binge. And now I’m slightly obsessed. ;) Some ideas for a story kept popping through my head, so I thought I’d write them down. This isn’t my first story that I’ve written, but my first Sleepy Hollow story. I hope I can do the characters justice. :)
> 
> And just so you know, most of my mental images of the famous men of the Colonial Era (like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, et al) come from the musical 1776. William Daniels pretty much IS John Adams in my head. :) And any mistakes I make about the real men who lived during that time are my mistakes. I did some research, but probably not near enough to be completely accurate. :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy the story. :)

#### Sleepy Hollow, New York

#### October 1772

There was something slightly eerie about the Village of Sleepy Hollow.

The burg, nestled 30 miles north of New York, bustled during the day, as small towns do, with life: ladies on their way to the market; gruff, coarse-looking redcoat soldiers hanging around the town’s tavern; farmers traveling into town to sell from their bountiful harvests of autumn corn and squashes; and giggling boys chasing each other down the street. A pleasant enough way to spend a late autumn day.

At night, however, the cheerful pleasure of the town vanished. Shopkeepers shuttered their windows, children were kept indoors, and even the tavern seemed solemn and still under the pale silver of the night’s full moon.

Unease skittered down George Washington’s spine as he gave Blueskin a gentle nudge with his booted foot. His horse’s gray-blue skin reflected the moonlight as he picked his way carefully down the dirt road toward the lantern-lit tavern that lay at one end of the town’s main road.

He wasn’t a fanciful man. Farmers and soldiers generally weren’t. He preferred life in his beloved Mount Vernon to anything involving espionage. If you’d asked him six months prior if he’d have been haring off to a clandestine meeting in Sleepy Hollow, of all places, he’d have told you quite frankly you were mad.

And yet, here he was.

Washington approached the dimly lit tavern, pulling his horse up short near the battered hitching post in front of the structure. He dismounted, taking a moment to tie the horse before he carefully pulled a leather satchel from his saddle bag. 

With a careful look around him, he walked up the path to the large oak door that led inside. Washington took a deep breath and then pushed down on the door’s latch.

The inside of the tavern was mostly empty, save for a man behind the long stretch of the bar that ran across one side of the large great room. A fire crackled in the stone fireplace, doing its noble best to ward off the late October night’s chill.

“Evening,” he said with an incline of his head.

“Evening,” the man replied as he dried a pewter mug and placed it on the shelf. “Care for a drink?”

Washington flicked his gaze toward the tap behind the heavy-set man. It had been a long ride from Manhattan to Sleepy Hollow, and his light supper in White Plains had been hours before. 

But the ale would make his sleepiness worse, and from all the reports from Franklin, he’d need his head about him. With a regretful, lingering look at the tap, Washington shook his head. “Thank you, but no.” He paused a moment before he asked, “Lachlan Fredericks, is he…?”

“Aye,” the man replied, jerking his head toward a closed door Washington hadn’t seen before at the very back of the room. “You be the man from Virginia, then?”

Washington hesitated a moment before he gave a short nod.

“He’s waiting for you.” The man, who had spent the entire conversation slowly drying another mug in his hand with the limp linen towel he held, suddenly seemed spurred into motion. He set the mug on the shelf and threw the towel over the tap before he headed toward the door through which Washington had entered the room. He pulled out a key and locked the door and then, for good measure, threw the bar down behind it.

Other than a tilt of his head in Washington’s direction, he made no other conversation, quickly leaving him alone in the great room.

Washington frowned as he watched him go but finally turned his attention to the closed door in the back of the room. He quickly strode across the room, opened the door and entered.

Five people looked up as he entered. Four women sat together in chairs, covered head-to-toe in black from the dark lace veils on their heads to the shiny black boots he could see peering underneath the hems of their skirts. The fifth occupant, he was relieved to see, was Lachlan Fredericks himself.

“Washington!” he boomed, a smile spreading across his kind face. “So glad you were able to join us this evening. Have you supped?”

“I broke fast in White Plains and rested my horse for an hour or so before I continued here.”

“Some ale, then? Or wine?”

Washington shook his head, the corners of his lips going ever so briefly upward. “No, thank you. I am well.”

“Then, to business?” he asked as he motioned for Washington to take a seat opposite him near the small fireplace. “Franklin has spoken with you, I assume?”

“Yes,” Washington replied as he settled into the high-backed, faded armchair across from Fredericks, wincing as he sat. His back and arse protested mightily after a long day’s ride in the saddle. “He mentioned you were interested in helping us in our efforts.” He slid a glance toward the four women who had not yet spoken a word. Fredericks hadn’t seen fit to introduce them, and Washington was hesitant about the propriety of the women being here, alone with Fredericks, at the late hour.

Fredericks studied him for several moments before he said, “You know there is a great deal more at stake here than the colonies’ desire for redress against the Crown.”

Unease slithered again down Washington’s spine. He’d always considered Franklin brilliant, but a bit fantastic in his ideas. His last somber conversation with the man had skirted the edges of the bizarre. Talk of the supernatural and the importance of aligning with a coven of witches, of all things.

But he couldn’t explain the urgency he felt leap inside him as Franklin had spoken or the sense of inevitability and truth that rang in the man’s words. It was said that Providence’s ways were beyond knowing. And Washington had a stubborn, strange sense of certainty that the good Lord’s hand was in this, whatever it was.

Out loud, he only gave the other man a tilt of his head. “I am aware,” he said simply.

“I have spoken with my…people,” Fredericks began, skirting around the word “coven”, “and they are agreed. We will work with you through the storm that is coming.” The younger man leaned forward then, his eyes determined and insistent. “But we will have your word that we will be full members of this new country—no longer persecuted by imprisonment, prejudice and fire.” 

Washington met the other man’s gaze steadily, his face not changing as Franklin’s words echoed in his head.

_“Promise them anything. The moon, if need be. We will need their aid if we are ever to succeed in this fight.”_

“My word,” he said, again, his voice a simple declaration.

Fredericks studied him again before he finally sat back, a look of relief on his face. “Good. That’s good.” He then turned toward the women behind him. “Now, ladies, tell the man what he needs to know.”

Washington was taken aback as all four women lifted their veils, each revealing a beautiful, luminous face. Each woman had hair as dark as a raven’s and eyes that glowed with intelligence and a hint of mischief. They began to speak, each voice resounding off the others, lobbying back and forth.

“A soldier, you have been…

“…and are now…”

“…and will be again…”

“…ready to ride into battle.”

He could not, even as he watched them, tell exactly which one of the women spoke at any particular moment. And after a few dizzying, confusing seconds, he found that his mind had started to congeal the different voices into one, sonorous sound, almost singing to him in his head.

“But your battle this time, Great Commander, is against the very forces of Hell itself. You will fight both man and beast and will commit yourself nobly to your Cause. But there is a greater role you must play. More important than any other.”

Washington blinked as the song suddenly stopped. He frowned, slowly coming back to himself. “What role?” he demanded. “I don’t understand.”

The women did not answer him but continued to stare at him, their eyes making no attempt to hide their eager, bordering on malicious, gleam.

He then turned, shifting uncomfortably, toward Fredericks. “Of what do they speak?”

Fredericks gave him a more natural smile. “Do excuse them, Washington. The Four Who Speak as One have a great love of dramatics.”

 _The four who speak as one?_ Before Washington could even get the words out to ask the question, Fredericks had already turned his attention to the satchel resting at Washington’s feet.

The younger man gestured toward it. “You brought it? Franklin told you?”

Washington frowned again but leaned forward as requested and opened the leather bag. Other than his money purse, it only contained his Bible. The cover was ornate with intricate designs, but its pages inside were well-read and worn. “I did,” he said, “but I don’t understand the purpose of doing so.”

The excitement rising off the women across from him was nearly tangible. 

“The book of Revelation…”

“…prophesied by the Apostle John…”

“…and destined to be ushered into reality…”

“…by Washington.”

Washington’s eyes widened at this. He looked at the four women and then turned to Fredericks. “What in hell...?”

“The book of Revelation, 11th chapter, 3rd verse.”

Washington opened the Bible, trying to ignore the rapacious stares of the Four Who Speak as One, and after a bit of searching, found the verse in question. “And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.” He looked up when he finished and immediately gave voice to the protest building inside him. “A witness? Of God? Surely you cannot be serious. I cannot be one of the foretold witnesses of God.”

“Not you.”

“You are the one who holds open the door…”

“…to let the storm of God…”

“…blow through.”

Washington stared, his mind simply refusing to accept the simple truth they held out in front of him. 

“Franklin obviously did not do as well at convincing you as to these matters as he should have.” Fredericks gave him an amused look as he leaned forward, grabbing the poker to stoke the fire.

“You must realize how utterly difficult it is to grasp such a thing,” Washington finally sputtered out. “Witnesses of God? Storms blowing through a door I hold open?”

“Aye. ‘Tis a strange time in which we live,” Fredericks said, leaning back in his chair. “But I have seen too many peculiar things happen to prevent me from believing in its truth.” He gestured at Washington. “Greater than any other quest you have. It is not only important, but nay—crucial--to find and prepare the witness.”

“Witness?” Washington grabbed on to the only thing he could really grasp of the words the other man had just spoken. “The Bible speaks of _two_ witnesses.”

“Only one…”

“…shall be revealed…”

“…in the time…”

“…before the time.”

The glee in the women’s voices unsettled him, and he shut the Bible closed, setting it back into his satchel. He leaned back in his chair and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “God’s wounds,” he muttered.

Fredericks chuckled but didn’t otherwise reply. Instead, he leaned over and yanked on the bell pull near to the fireplace. He raised an eyebrow at Washington. “Ready for that ale now, sir?” he asked.

Washington met his gaze and nodded wearily, realizing at that moment that his life would never again be quite the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biblical quote is from the King James Version.
> 
> Blueskin was one of the real George Washington's horses.


	2. The One Who Cries in the Wilderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is written from the point of view of Arthur Bernard and the events leading up to his meeting with Ichabod in the Sin Eater.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note. Arthur Bernard, in the story, was a freed man, but they didn't go into his past at all. I've tried to touch a little on the experiences who made the man he became. It's only a taste, and I definitely can't do justice to what a black man of that time would have gone through and thought about his life and situation, because it certainly is nothing at all like my life and its blessings. But I didn't want it glossed over or tossed under the rug. So there is some reference to his previous slavery here and his feelings about it and himself.
> 
> I also use Englishman and Dutchman to describe the differences in ancestry between the men in the room. Technically, the colonies were considered all part of England, and its citizens would be British. But the Dutch settled a good portion of New York, and I think the differences between the English and Dutch settlers would still be noted and remarked on, and thus, the commentary. At this point, they wouldn't quite be calling themselves Americans, only being brought into Washington's fold a few weeks hence.
> 
> And I have to just say here that trying to make the show's crazy Revolutionary War timeline fit with real historical events is near nigh impossible. *grin*

#### November 1772

#### Sleepy Hollow, New York

There were times—so many times—that he had cursed the blackness of his skin. A skin that had torn him from a family he would never know. A skin that subjected him to harsh, cruel masters who gave him menial, unrelenting, back-breaking labor to perform. A skin that caused him to often be treated far worse than the animals that populated the master’s barn.

It had been hard, too, to push down the bubbles of rage and anger at his mistreatment and misfortune that was, more than anything, an accident of birth. Difficult to keep the defiance from his gaze and his hands clenched at his side rather than buried beautifully in the faces of his vicious masters.

But there were brief moments of glory amid the slow, aching suffering of his life. His last master had bought him for the purpose of setting him free. That man, Edward Smith, had offered him the chance for knowledge and learning and had taught him to read and write, encouraging his reason and cultivating his pursuit of the scholarly. To say that he had jumped on the opportunity as a voracious, starving lion would on a particularly tempting zebra would not do his appetite for knowledge justice.

And then there was Lachlan Fredericks.

With Fredericks, he had found a mission. A calling. The idea of freedom for all. Freedom from the Crown’s tyranny. The freedom of the enslaved. The building of a country where many weary souls from around the world could become one people of peace. A fighting back against the chaotic evil that pitted men against each other and against God above. A true, good order from evil’s chaos.

Arthur Bernard allowed himself one very small smile before he slipped out the back door of his house—a home so much grander than he’d dared ever dream as a child. He had warmth, food, friendship, and, most importantly, a sense of purpose that drove his every waking moment.

Bernard patted his jacket pocket, feeling for his papers. It was both a needed ritual—so he’d have them to show anyone who might ask—and a constant, comforting reminder of his freedom. A reminder that his heart sometimes needed in order to strengthen it against the perils of picking his way through the evil, fallen world around him.

Today, however, he was in the finest of moods. 

Bernard enjoyed the Indian Summer’s sunshine that gave the air an unseasonably warm feeling. It gave his steps an extra little jaunt to them as he hurried through the cramped alleyway between his house and the one next to it, heading for the shed near the back of Thomas Van Dyke’s small home.

Van Dyke was a patriot and a surprising ally and friend. He hadn’t known what to expect when Edward Smith had opened one of his beautiful homes to Arthur as his own. But Smith had known what he was about. Thomas Van Dyke, a descendant of Dutchmen who had traveled to the New World 100 years previous and who was a good friend of Henry Wisner, was his neighbor to the south, and Baltus Van Tassel, another Dutchman and abolitionist Quaker, the one to the north.

It was Van Dyke who had introduced Bernard to the series of tunnels hidden underneath Sleepy Hollow—a way for men to escape the notice of the proliferation of British redcoats that seemed to have descended en masse into town and permanently camped there.

Edward Smith was influential enough to keep the soldiers from commandeering his properties to house the Redcoats, but Bernard knew he worried that current freedom would soon change. Bernard also knew what Smith didn’t want to say directly. A house lived in by a Negro, even a freed man such as himself, would be far more likely a target for upheaval than a white man’s home.

But Bernard had learned the merit of turning any situation, no matter how grim it might be, to his advantage. 

An advantage he planned to pursue. His proposal, over which he’d toiled all the night long, depended very strongly on the Redcoats doing exactly as their reputation promised they’d do: commandeering his house.

His mouth twitched upward again as he slipped open the door to the shed and quickly closed it behind him. Without much thought, he lifted the large sacks of feed away from an area near the back of the shed and put them to one side, revealing a wooden trapdoor in the floor of the shed.

Bernard grabbed the small lantern hanging on a nail on the wall opposite him and pulled out his tinder and flint to light its wick before descending the wooden ladder into the tunnel below.

The walk through the tunnels to the exit near Fredericks Manor was not an especially long one—perhaps an hour’s journey at most—and he’d heard many of the others complain about the dim, damp, dark tunnels that were necessary for a good portion of the travel. 

He, however, didn’t mind it. It was often a cooler place to be in a hot New York July or August, and after so many years of never having the power to dictate his own schedule or even movements, Bernard relished the freedom and ability to walk with long strides, with his head up and his eyes gazing ahead of him rather than having to keep his gaze lowered in public. The tunnel was a place of freedom for him, and thus, he relished his walks through them, no matter how moist he might be at his journey’s end.

By the time he’d reached Fredericks Manor, the sun had already begun its descent under the horizon, and the rise of the moon brought with it the chill of the evening’s air. Bernard quickened his pace as he headed up the long drive of the Manor. He believed himself to be a man of reason. He’d written pamphlets and discourses which were roundly exclaimed over in the public square. 

But there was something evil that settled into Sleepy Hollow when the moon rose. A sinister undertone colored every whistle of the wind through the nearly bare branches, every mournful hoot of the owl, and the hunting dog’s bay at the moon.

It was a relief, then, to see the lights twinkling in the windows of the manor, and the calm, peaceful face of Grace Dixon waiting in the doorway for him.

He didn’t know if Mrs. Dixon was one of the witches in Fredericks’ coven. The man never spoke the coven members’ true names out loud to anyone. To speak a name was a measure of power over the one spoken over. And Lachlan refused to abuse his power.

This trait of the man was one of the myriad of reasons Bernard would follow him anywhere.

“Mrs. Dixon,” Bernard called out as he stepped up the small stoop to the door with a smile on his handsome face. “An uncommon pleasure to see you.”

Grace gave him a smile in return, stepping closer to the open door to allow him entry. “You speak the truth, Arthur Bernard. Uncommon, indeed. We haven’t seen you at the Manor for nearly a fortnight! We all had begun to worry!”

Bernard hung his hat on one of the hooks near the door there for that very purpose and straightened his jacket and wig before turning to Grace with a mischievous smile. “It is because I have been working hard on a plan. It has, to be truthful, consumed most of my waking hours.” He winked at her. “And some of my non-waking hours as well.”

Grace considered him carefully as she closed the door and locked it behind her. Bernard noticed that her hands circled gently over the lock. Lachlan and Mrs. Dixon were forever worrying about the protections of the house. He knew Grace had some sort of innate power—a power he didn’t exactly understand but could appreciate for what it was. She had her place in the mission, and he had his.

He was not a witch, a seer, a prophet—nothing of the kind. He was a strategist at heart. He spent his time planning a course of action and implementing it. His mission was to help usher in a new world—a new country—and to protect it from the evil that was attempting to prevent that from happening.

His pamphlets as the fabled Cicero had been a good start. But it was his plan for what happened next that had filled him with a strange mixture of elation, excitement and terror.

“Is Mr. Fredericks at home?” he asked.

Grace nodded, stepping forward and leading him down the hallway. “Several members are here tonight,” she began. Her voice lowered to a whisper. “They believe they’ve identified the witness.”

A thrill skittered down his spine at the words. “I believe I have as well. I am eager to learn what they have discovered.”

Grace gave him a simple, sweet smile but did not respond. She rapped once on the closed doors near the end of the hallway. A moment later, Lachlan Fredericks opened the door, an inquiring look on his face.

“Arthur Bernard, sir,” she said.

Fredericks, by this time, had seen Bernard and his face lit with a broad smile. “Arthur! So good to see you!” He extended his hand, which Arthur took and shook. “Join us, will you? We were just starting our discussion.”

Amiably, and with no little excitement, Bernard followed Fredericks into the parlor, Grace following behind them. Several members of Lachlan’s coven with there. Most of them, he knew by sight only, although he had been introduced to the reverend of the Episcopalian church, whose name was always slipping his mind. 

They all greeted him warmly, however, which still had the power to banish some of the chill around his heart. Several Englishmen, a couple of Dutchmen, and an old Irish crone who had to be 90, if she were a day, sat in various chairs around the room.

“We were speaking of the witness,” Fredericks offered as he motioned toward one of the high-backed chairs he’d imported into the room, Bernard recognized, from the dining room.

“I still have difficulty believing that he could be a Redcoat, of all things,” one of the Dutchmen said, shaking a wizened head. “Are we certain it isn’t a trap? There are so many of them that are just demons in human form.”

“If he isn’t the witness,” the reverend interjected, “he’s important to the cause. The sheer amount of demons in his regiment are there for a reason. They obviously weren’t able to keep him in England, despite their best efforts.”

“I hear tell he’s of the nobility,” offered one of the Englishmen, a stout, thoughtful looking man. “Second or third son, I gather. Seems a rum go to travel over here when he could have a life of ease in London.”

“One of the many things in his favor,” pointed out another Englishman. “Patriotism, serving God and his country.”

“And he doesn’t like slavery.” The crone had been silent for a long time, but her forceful words took the others by surprise.

“An abolitionist? Seems unlikely,” the second Dutchman protested. “From the nobility? A spoiled aristocrat?” His heavy brows came together in a frown.

The old woman’s eyes crinkled as she barked out a laugh. “And what does the man’s birth have to do with it?” She pointed a wrinkled finger at him. “The good Lord called King David a man after his own heart, and he was an adulterer and a murderer. Providence uses who He sees fit. Whether he was born in the pastures of England, behind the Great Wall of China, or in the deserts of Africa.” She smirked at the man before continuing, “It’d probably amuse Him to use a tall drink of British Redcoat water like Lieutenant Crane.”

Bernard perked up at that, raising his gaze to meet that of the old woman’s. “Lieutenant _Ichabod_ Crane?”

She nodded. “Aye. That’s the name I’ve heard.”

Fredericks glanced at Bernard, his interest piqued. “What news have you?”

“I must agree with the good lady here,” Bernard began. “I, too, have been very diligent in watching the British soldiers ever since the Four Who Speak as One told us their vision. I know their visions can sometimes be rather purposefully vague, but I’ve seen signs, just like they said.” He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming. “And I have a growing conviction inside me that declares—nay, _insists_ —that he is the man whom Washington seeks.”

The room fell silent for several moments before the first Dutchman spoke again. “If this is true, if this Crane _is_ the witness, how will we approach him? I do not lie about the demons in his regiment. He is watched most assiduously.”

“I have a plan,” Bernard said in a low voice.

“What sort of plan?” Fredericks demanded.

“Cicero.” He looked at the others. “You all will spread a rumor to unmask him.”

There was an immediate round of protests.

“Good God!”

“Are you mad?”

“You can’t _do_ such a thing!”

Fredericks leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “It’s a death sentence for you, Arthur. We can’t let you do it.”

Bernard cut through his friend’s protest with a sharp gesture of his hand. “I must. It is the only way.” He paused, letting the thrill and fear wind together inside him. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. This. This was the reason for which he was created. The one to awaken the witness.

“I have been under the eye of the colonel of that regiment for some time. I do believe the only reason he has not already commandeered my home is that it is under the ownership of Edward Smith. He would relish the opportunity to make an example of me. I know he would.” 

“But he’s one of the very demons of whom I spoke,” the old Dutchman protested. “He’d eviscerate you.”

“Not right away,” he insisted. “Not until he’d brought Crane around to his master’s bidding.” His eyes lit as he continued to speak. “He would bring Crane. He would force Crane into the position of making a choice. He would want Crane to be the one to destroy me.” Bernard looked at the others, urgency making his voice strident. “I must be the one. The sacrifice so that the witness may rise.”

The last words he spoke made the others in the room shift uneasily. It had been the last line of the Four Who Speak as One’s prophecy, and the one no one had wanted to hear. There had been discussion among themselves as to who or what sacrifice would be demanded. And now, here he was, offering himself.

“Arthur, I…” The look on his friend’s face set a crack through Bernard’s heart. He did not want to grieve his friend, and he didn’t know if he could make the others understand. Giving himself as a sacrifice in the fight against evil…there was no nobler purpose. And he had wanted for the entirety of his life to have a real purpose. A meaning bigger than the evils he had suffered. 

“Do not think of me,” he said quietly. “Think of the witness. He must be saved. At all costs. We cannot think of what we lose or what we sacrifice. The end must be his safety.”

After much muttering and discussion, his plan was finally, grudgingly accepted, and the meeting soon dispersed.

As Bernard stood near the door to leave, reaching up to retrieve his tri-corner hat from its hook, he felt a hand on his arm. He turned to look and saw the old woman peering up at him.

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,” she murmured. “I pray you will be able to save him.” To his surprise, the rheumy blue eyes watered as she whispered, “And I will pray you will be strong throughout your sacrifice.”

He swallowed, hard, and gave her a tremulous smile. “Thank you,” he said, in a low, husky voice.

She patted his arm again before stepping out the door and heading toward the carriage that would carry her back to her home in Sleepy Hollow.

As for Arthur Bernard, he settled his hat on his head, squared his shoulders and stepped out into the night air, ready to face his destiny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The One Who Cries in the Wilderness is a reference to Isaiah 40:3. The verse is believed by many to reference John the Baptist, who preached the coming of Christ, and who was martyred during Jesus' lifetime. The parallel here is deliberate, even if Ichabod Crane isn't exactly Jesus. ;)
> 
> Edward Smith is not a real person nor based on one. I like to think (and hope) that there might have been an Edward Smith sort of person back then, trying to right wrongs, one person at a time.
> 
> Thomas Van Dyke was also not a real person, but Henry Wisner was. And Baltus Van Tassel is the father of Katrina Van Tassel, from the short story, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow".
> 
> And the name of Cicero, the philosopher, was used as a pseudonym in Revolutionary War pamphlets.


	3. The Dark Night of the Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place during the past events shown in the episode, "The Sin Eater", after Katrina meets with Ichabod and discusses his being the one "they" are looking for, and before his last conversation with Arthur Bernard, where Ichabod refuses to shoot him as he was ordered to do.
> 
> This is Ichabod's wrestling with himself before he makes the decision he does in that last, pivotal scene: to turn his back on his country and his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a long ramble at the end of my thoughts about Ichabod Crane’s 18th century timeline. For those of you who are interested, you can check it out. For those who aren’t, suffice to say that I tweaked his timeline a little to make it fit. He meets Abraham in America, not England, and I have him at 36 when he "dies" in 1781.

Ichabod Crane returned to his small but adequate room at Sleepy Hollow’s local inn. He closed the door and turned the key in the lock, shutting out some of the noise and laughter from the dining room below. Wearily, he took off his hat and coat and hung them on one of the hooks on the wall. With a careful hand, he took off his wig and set it on the nightstand next to his bed. A quick tug of his leather tie had his hair falling around his face, loose and free. He ran a hand through it, scratching out the itchy spots on his scalp where the wig had chafed under his hat. Finally, he sat down in one of the large armchairs nearest to the merrily crackling fire and pulled off his boots, dumping them unceremoniously on the hearth nearby.

He stretched his legs out in front of him, trying to ease the slight ache in his calves. He’d walked the length of Sleepy Hollow and back today, lost in his thoughts, and he felt every one of his seven and twenty years as a result. Ichabod winced as he flexed his right foot. There was always that lingering ache there from when he’d twisted it as a boy, chasing after his older brothers. Normally, he gave no thought to the incident—it had happened some twenty years previous and the muscle rarely ever reminded him of the fact—but today, memories of his family weighed heavily on his mind as real a pain as the dull throb in his calf.

Serious, steadfast Isaiah and merry, madcap John. They’d been everything to him as a young child. Their mother had died giving birth to John, and his own mother, who’d married his father later in his life, had been cherished and adored by all three of the Crane men. When he’d entered the world as a surprise last of the Crane line, he’d been coddled and spoiled and encouraged in every way possible—the cosseted pet of the four people closest to him in his life.

They’d been so very proud of him when he’d asked his father to purchase a commission in the army for him. Isaiah had exclaimed his professorial knowledge would be crucial in reining in the unruly colonists; John had declared he’d defeat the colonials just by turning those blue eyes on their ladies; his father had raved about the honor he brought the family name; and his mother…

He swallowed hard as he stared into the fire, not really seeing the twisting orange and yellow flames, but his beloved mother’s face. She had straightened his tri-corner hat, smoothed out his red Army coat, and given him a kiss and a tremulous smile the day he’d left for the Colonies.

He hadn’t realized it then, but it was the last time he would ever see her. A letter had wound its way to him several months later, advising she had died of dysentery during his ocean voyage to the Colonies.

_Perhaps it was that event that had started it all._

Ichabod had noticed an ever-growing, slightly sickening feeling of having his ties to Britain severed. First, it was Mary—the girl he’d been promised to as a child. Their parting of ways had been a firm snap of a tie linking him to home. Then, he’d physically left the rolling green hills of his Scotland estate to travel to the Colonies in His Majesty’s army. Another snap. Then, his mother had died. Another painful, heart-wrenching snap.

Even the army he’d been so proud to join had not turned out to be the exciting quest to right wrongs for His Majesty he had thought it would be. 

Sleepy Hollow seemed to be as its name would suggest. Other than routing out a few rabble-rousers and punishing them accordingly, there had been very little action and no adventure whatsoever.

His companions were mainly his fellow soldiers, who were a rather surly and difficult lot, prone to drink and gambling. And their boredom often caused them to look for sport elsewhere—whether it was horse racing outside of the town’s limits, card games, chasing after the local women, or mocking the slave, the pitiful poor, or the feeble-minded. Associating with the other men in his regiment had grown so repugnant to him that he often retreated to his room when he wasn’t on duty in order to escape their company.

His other options for friendship were limited. He attended the few engagements held by the local gentry to which he was invited, but it was nothing he hadn’t participated in a thousand times before--inane small talk, simpering laughter, and pointless entertainment supported on the backs of the hard farming work of the slaves they bought like chattel.

The working farmers and merchants in town distrusted the “regulars”, as they were called. They took their coin, well enough, but attempts at conversation with any of them were stilted at best and curt and unpleasant at worst.

Seeing the way his fellow soldiers acted, he could hardly blame them for being suspicious and reserved.

And then there was the case of Arthur Bernard.

Ichabod closed his eyes, a fresh wave of shame washing over him. He hadn’t laid a hand personally on the man, but he could still smell his blood’s sharp tang and see its dark red drops on the cudgel his fellow soldier had used on Bernard’s unresistant body. He had seen the horrors the African slaves endured up close during his time here in New York, and the beating of Arthur Bernard reeked too much of that same kind of callous, terrible treatment.

Ichabod leaned forward in the chair, rubbing his hands against his face. And for the man to say he was in “good hands” to Miss Van Tassel. It plagued him, those words. For several days now, he had peered in the mirror, looking at his visage, trying to discern the traces of humanity and reason on which he’d prided himself for so long. All he’d seen was the shame, horror and guilt. What did Arthur Bernard see in him that he couldn’t see in himself?

Today had been even worse. Watching men be hanged with such vindictive glee. Seeing the suffering of the boy who had watched his father die. And for…what? The man daring to believe in something larger? A better home? A better country? A better world?

When its soldiers were taking such delight in such a great evil, was Britain even something worth fighting for anymore?

The thought choked him. Years of loving his homeland with every fiber of his being—its rich, magnificent culture, its centuries of knowledge, and all of the beloved people that country had given him. The bustle and excitement of London and Glasgow. The beauty of the rolling hills of his father’s estate. He’d thought it was natural as breathing to revere the land as a vital part of who he was. The idea of Britain not worth fighting for even entering his head tortured him, tearing at his soul.

And if all of that hadn’t been bad enough, Miss Katrina Van Tassel had waltzed into his life. Tall, beautiful and proud. Her simple Quaker dogmatism was so fresh and new and different. And it mattered not to her who he was, what he thought, or even what he could have done to her. She stood up for a man imprisoned and beaten--a man most people only understood as property, freed or not. 

And yet, even with his implicit participation in something so heinous, she, too, saw something good in him. Was his struggle so obvious and readable on his countenance? Was he truly wrestling as a good man with a conscience? Did a good man betray his country? His family?

And was his desperate need to believe her words an encouragement to be the better man she saw him to be? Was he searching for truth as she did? Or was it merely the twitch of his cock, hungry for the delights of a fine-looking woman? The delights he’d denied himself for so many months?

He was ashamed to admit that he didn’t know.

But he couldn’t eradicate the memory of the flicker on the face of his commanding officer. Only for the briefest of moments, enough to make him question his own sanity for believing he'd seen it. And yet, he was certain. Certain deep in his marrow of what he’d seen there. A visage of true evil.

Miss Van Tassel had been insistent that he possessed…a gift. The power to bear witness?

He frowned. What in the hell did that mean? What gift? A gift of seeing demons in the faces of men? That was more a sign of madness than a gift.

Good God. Demons. Gifts. Bearing Witness. A secret war.

What in all that was holy was happening to him?

Ichabod rose, then, unable to sit any longer. He strode across the room to the lone small window that overlooked the street below, pushed aside the curtain, and threw up the sash.

The moon had risen high in the night’s sky, sending down pale slivers of light that danced across trees and housetops, bathing the town below it in an ethereal, almost unreal glow. 

He could hear the laughter from the dining room below and could see the dotting of candlelight in the windows of the homes across the way. Usually, the ebb and flow of a simple night cleared his head and comforted his soul.

But not this night.

Miss Van Tassel’s words echoed in his head, over and over and over again:

_“Evil gains its strength when good men do nothing. You are a good man, Ichabod Crane.”_

Was he?

If anyone had asked him two years ago, when he’d been content with broadening the minds of his students at Oxford, if he was a good man, he might have demurred out of politeness, but he’d been certain in his goodness. His quality. His _rightness._

Now here he was, miles away from home and questioning the fabric of all that had previously defined him. Questioning his country, his home, his identity, his very sanity.

What made a good man? What made a demon?

And what sacrifices would be required of him to become a man who would not flinch or turn away in the face of evil?

Ichabod bowed his head, his hand clutching at the faded blue curtain, afraid of the growing truth in his heart.

_“Destiny isn’t a matter of chance, but of choice. And what you choose to accept will eventually become yours.”_

His hand clenched more tightly on the curtain, and his other hand shook as he ran it down the side of his face. “God in Heaven,” he whispered. “What would you have me do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Katrina's quotes are from the episode, "The Sin Eater".
> 
> Dysentery is an infection of the intestines, usually caused by bacteria. In severe cases, it can cause convulsions and a coma and death in less than 24 hours. It's very rare nowadays, thank goodness, but much more common in the 1700s.
> 
> I’m a history nut and a person who’s kind of a stickler for getting things right, so when I went to write this story, I wanted to try to establish a timeline for Ichabod Crane’s life. Just in general. But for him to have had time to be a professor at Oxford University, and meet Abraham Van Brunt, and then join the British Army and travel to America at a time where he could have been in Boston for the Boston Tea Party in 1773 and already be on the side of the Patriots, and then be married to Katrina for the six years he says he is in Season 3, and not be like 45-50 years old in the number of years he lived before showing up in 2013…well...*grin* Not really possible.
> 
> I know the show isn’t at all supposed to be realistic, but my head is exploding, so I’ve made a couple of adjustments for my story to work. I guess that makes this AU? Sort of? :)
> 
> Ichabod Crane finished his own matriculation at Oxford University in 1765 and immediately took on a professorship at the university at the young age of 20 because he was brilliant ‘n’ stuff. After the Boston Massacre in 1770, he had many conversations with his father and older brothers and ultimately decided to purchase a commission in the British Army and travel to the American colonies to help stabilize the town of Boston and its important port. He arrives in Boston in 1771 and rises up in the ranks of the officers to Lieutenant by 1772 and is reassigned to Sleepy Hollow, New York, where he meets Arthur Bernard and Katrina Van Tassel and defects to the American cause.
> 
> Note that I don't think that Crane can be an only or eldest son in the Crane family. The way aristocratic families kept their land intact and in the family was by having sons to take on the responsibility of both the title and the ownership of the land. It is unlikely that Crane was even a second son, because his health and well-being would have been important to protect if he was close to being in line for the title. He would not have been allowed to join the Army if he had been an only or eldest son. Death to the heir meant the land being either passed to another branch of the family tree or reverting to the Crown. 
> 
> Younger sons, however, did not inherit any part of the land (in order to keep the total amount together) and usually opted for professions in the church or in the military.
> 
> He does not, in my version, travel with Abraham Van Brunt from England. In this story, Abraham Van Brunt is a descendant of Dutch settlers in America, who he meets and befriends after he switches sides in the Revolutionary War. 
> 
> He returns to Boston for several missions for the Patriots, including the Boston Tea Party, and is mostly absent from Sleepy Hollow for long periods of time between 1772 and early 1774, playing spy for Washington and undergoing training with Franklin and Jefferson.
> 
> He does not see Katrina again until early 1774, where he is re-introduced to her as Abraham’s fiancée. By late August, Katrina has broken off her engagement to Abraham, and it is in traveling from the First Continental Congress to deliver a draft of the Declaration of Resolves, that he tells Abraham about Katrina and they have their sword fight and Abraham becomes the Horseman of Death. 
> 
> Ichabod and Katrina are married in the spring of 1775 and Ichabod is fatally wounded by the Horseman of Death in a fictional battle outside of Sleepy Hollow in October of 1781. (The only battle in the Revolutionary War that happened in 1781 in New York where there were American casualties happened 175 miles north of Sleepy Hollow—a 7-day journey by horseback.)
> 
> So, Ichabod Crane “dies” around the age of 36 in my story.
> 
> I’ll work on a ramble for Abbie later when I get to that point. :) If you read all this, you’re a trooper!!! *grin*


	4. The Seer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace Dixon has visions of things that are to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's taken me so long to get another chapter of this posted! Working and going to school full-time and family stuff has kind of taken over life lately!
> 
> And I had trouble getting my head back in the game after last night's episode. Was that amazing or what?!! I'm eager to see where they take it!
> 
> Abbie's history should come next, now that I have Ichabod's part done. :) I'm eager to get to it, especially after last night!
> 
> Thanks for the lovely feedback and comments. It really is greatly appreciated. :) *hugs*

**October 31, 1781**

She rose with the sun like always.

It helped some—having a routine to follow. She could oversee the housemaid and help with lighting the fires in the fireplaces to ward off the chill of the late October air. She could bustle into the kitchen to make sure the cook had started on the morning meal. And if there was no need of her help there, there was always the correspondence to attend to.

The household was always busy and active in the morning, greeting the day with a cheerful smile and warm, pleasant conversation. Lachlan Fredericks and his family were easy-going, wonderful people to live and work with, and they made the Manor a true home and sanctuary for all who lived there.

But, today, there was none of the contented peace she often felt.

Grace Dixon paused on the stairs, taking in one slow breath after another, whispering the old words of a spell for calm that her grandmother had taught her long ago. “ _Tuliza ku, Kutulizia roho._ ”

Even that, however, failed her.

The visions had started soon after her first meeting with Ichabod Crane.

The man had been all that was genial and kind. She knew, from the stories she had heard, that the Witness’ defection to the Patriots had been an enormous boon. Washington himself spoke highly of the captain. He was brilliant, capable, and provided crucial knowledge about the British troops vital to the cause for which they fought.

And with their beginning, it was easy to see and understand why Katrina had fallen so very hard for the dashing soldier. She had been as pleased for the couple as any of the others and celebrated their happiness with great joy.

Until she had met Ichabod Crane in the flesh.

Lachlan Fredericks often teased her about being a seer—his very own Cassandra. A woman with great knowledge and insight into the future.

The comparison to Cassandra had made her smile until she remembered that Cassandra had been cursed to never be believed about her prophecies.

And today, she felt far too close to Cassandra for her own personal comfort.

She wasn’t certain how even to describe it. She had met Ichabod in one of Lachlan’s salons. Lachlan had told her that Katrina had wanted to introduce Ichabod to them formally in a gathering that would not give away their coven to him.

That, to Grace, was already a concern. How could Katrina live as the wife of the man—the Witness, of all things—and not admit to him who and what she truly was? Not to mention the role her coven played in the war for independence? Or how that was entwined with Ichabod’s role as a witness?

She said nothing, however. It mattered little the respect that Katrina gave her as a person. In the end, it never did. Whether Katrina Crane would have listened to her or not, Grace would have acted no differently. She often saw glimpses of the future, and that made her a valuable asset to Lachlan and his coven. Reluctantly, she would share these glimpses as were needed to assist in the Patriots’ cause, but she never shared the longer, detailed visions that she saw in her mind—performing in front of her as if she were watching a play. They were rare and always came to her with a sense of dread and horror. 

Ichabod Crane’s hand had touched hers, and a myriad of images had assaulted her: him falling on the battlefield, blood pouring from a gaping wound on his chest, a dark, damp cave and his gasping for air as he burst from under the ground.

It had shocked her so that she nearly dropped his hand, eager to escape the tortuous images that had plagued her mind. She was certain she’d seen the man’s death. That alone would have grieved and shocked her, but the bursting from the ground. Had he been buried? In a cave? Alive? What did it mean? 

She didn’t understand. And the not understanding made the terror even more deep-set and intransigent. 

Was she to warn him? Or warn Katrina? Or was this part of what the Witness had to go through and something with which she should not trifle?

Grace had poured over her Bible the night before, searching for answers. The Bible had foretold the two witness' deaths, but it was the two witnesses _together_ who perished, not one, and the two were refused burial at all. They lay out dead, in public, to the mockery of all around them. No caves. No respectful rites. Nothing to indicate that either of them ever made it under the ground.

As far as she knew, the second witness had not yet made an appearance. This had worried them all.

The presence of demons had risen sharply over the months of the war. They hid, not only in the red coats of the British army, but in simple shopkeepers and mothers out with their children. It was getting harder and harder just to determine who was a benevolent soul and who was not.

And protecting the first Witness had proved a harder task than any of them had realized. The Boston incident had left all the men in Ichabod Crane’s party dead. Crane’s closest friend, Abraham Van Brunt, had been ruthlessly cut down. There were tales of men viciously beheaded by a seemingly unstoppable horseman. And Captain Crane seemed to glory in putting himself in the thick of dangerous situations, being a dedicated and unswerving soldier and spy for General Washington and his men.

She was very afraid that the evil forces that permeated Sleepy Hollow were making every attempt to assassinate Captain Crane before the second witness appeared and could join him to perform the work the good Lord had in front of them. The witnesses’ powers together were far stronger than Ichabod Crane’s was alone.

Grace knew that Lachlan Fredericks had been frustrated with the Four Who Speak as One for not being clearer about the second witness and when he would appear. She didn’t like the women or trust them. They held too much sway over the coven and their amoral glee in confounding those around them rankled her. 

Powers were to be used to the good— _always_. If you did not use your powers in the service of God and the good, you were fighting for the Enemy.

Grace clutched the banister, worry creasing her face. Something had to be done. Perhaps she could warn Katrina. Or Captain Crane himself. Would they listen?

A tremor shook through the house suddenly, breaking into her reverie and shocking her with its intensity. The happy buzz of the morning stopped, its silence eerie in its totality for one brief moment. 

Then, the exclamations and calling out began, the clamor rising as doors slammed, and people began to run, congregating on the main floor of the house.

“What on earth was that?”

“What has happened?”

“Mr. Fredericks?”

She could hear Lachlan Fredericks’ heavy footfall on the stairs behind her. He reached where she stood on the stairs, and a comforting hand rested on her shoulder for a brief moment. 

“Grace?” he asked softly.

She wanted to respond, but she found she couldn’t. The only thing in her that was fighting to come out was a silent scream. Visions flashed before her eyes: the axe falling, the blood soaking into Ichabod Crane’s linen shirt, the dank cave, his gasping for air.

And this time, there were more. A prison, shackles, a cemetery, rapid gunfire and a man in odd clothing being beheaded in a barn.

She squeezed her eyes. “Please, Lord,” she breathed. “Make it stop.”

The door burst open then. A man, disheveled and covered in the soot of the battlefield, gasped for breath. “The Witness. You must come. There’s no time.”

Grace fought back a wave of fear and panic. She took several deep breaths, trying to steady herself. _He's died. It's happening. Just as I saw it to be. I can't. I can't do this._ Then, suddenly and inexplicably, the anxiety vanished and was replaced by a peace that was beyond anything she’d ever experienced. She felt a beautiful, golden light seep through her, healing and comforting as it went. _Rest, my child. All will be well._

No answers, no understanding, just peace about what lay ahead.

And that peace gave her the strength to turn, look up at Lachlan, and say, “Come, Mr. Fredericks. We must go.”

He studied her for a moment, his eyes searching her as if he wanted to read her mind. Then, he simply nodded, and the two of them got their coats and hurried to follow the shaking, desperate-sounding man.

Grace barely listened to the man’s frantic explanation of what had happened to Ichabod Crane. She had already seen the events in her mind and needed no recounting of them. She only heard Lachlan’s horrified exclamations as background buzzing—a slight annoyance that was there but not paid attention to.

All she could focus on were the gleeful countenances of the Four Who Speak as One and their announcement that the first witness would be revealed in the time before the time.

_The time before the time._

As the carriage brought them closer and closer to town, Grace mulled the words over in her mind. _The time before the time_. She couldn’t let go of the thought. It circled around and around in her head until the carriage finally arrived at the army’s triage tent.

Ichabod Crane, when she saw him, was no longer conscious. His chest rattled with the effort to breathe, and although attempts had been made to close the gaping wound on his chest, Grace could easily see that the charming, brave soldier she’d so liked was not long for this world.

Katrina leaned over her husband, her words coming out in choked sobs. She had his hand firmly clenched in hers, begging him to stay with her.

Reverend Knapp hurried over, upon seeing them enter the tent. He had a large book clasped in his hand. “We don’t have much time.” His wrinkled face was creased and worried.

That strange sense of peace still stayed with Grace, enveloping her in calm as she leaned over Ichabod, gently wiping the soot of the battlefield from his handsome face.

His head turned toward her hand, ever so slightly, seeking comfort. She laid her hand more firmly on his head while Lachlan came forward, his face grave and ashen.

“What do we do?” he asked Knapp, his voice a low whisper among the moans of the injured and dying around them.

“There is a spell,” Knapp said quietly. “One that will put Captain Crane into a state of suspended animation.”

Lachlan frowned at that. “For what purpose?”

“Until we can find a way to heal him,” Katrina said, grasping Ichabod’s hand all the more tightly. She pulled it to her lips, kissing him. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “My love. Stay with me.”

Grace saw the look Reverend Knapp exchanged with Lachlan. There would be no healing for Ichabod Crane. Not in the way that Katrina Crane wanted.

Knapp took Lachlan aside so that Katrina could not hear him, but Grace could still do so. “My thought is that we keep him in this state until the second witness can be found. Perhaps the power of having the other witness with him will bring Captain Crane back to his full strength again.”

Lachlan digested this, considering it for several seconds, before he nodded. “Let us commence the spell at once.”

All four of them circled Ichabod’s body, each touching him in some way, skin to skin. Reverend Knapp began the low read of the incantation.

His struggles began to lessen as Knapp spoke, the limbs that were twitching and writhing began to still, and Ichabod’s eyes fluttered open again—just once—before they closed again , never to reopen. 

Knapp neared the end of the incantation, and Grace, feeling compelled by some force she did not understand, leaned forward and put her forehead to his.

Images flashed through her mind. Strange, unreal bursts of pictures. Again, gunfire, a cemetery, the cave and a prison. But at the very end, she saw a glimpse—just a glimpse—of Captain Crane stretching out one of his strong, fine-boned hands and clasping the small, dark-skinned diminutive hand of another.

The picture was hazy. He did not look at her, for it was a _her_ and not a him, nor she at him. But they walked together through a doorway that had opened between worlds.

“The second witness,” she whispered, awe stealing into her voice. Her heart thumped and her eyes closed, a prayer—almost a plea—bubbling up inside her, urging its way out.

And as Ichabod Crane took in one last deep breath, she kissed his forehead. “Find her, Captain Crane. Go and find her.”

He shuddered, ever so slightly, and then his body fell limp.

As Katrina sobbed, Grace looked at the two men standing grimly around his body. They’d done all they could. Now it was up to God and Ichabod Crane to do the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phrase Grace Dixon says (her spell for calm) is actually the Swahili words for "calm" or "console". I found them in this book: A Handbook of the Swahili Language as Spoken at Zanzibar By Edward Steere, published in 1884. It's an Englishman's version of the Swahili language, so take it with some grain of salt in terms of the spelling and the exact meaning, but I thought an older book might have an older version of the language. At least closer to what it might have been in the 1700s rather than any current version of Swahili. Any mistakes are definitely mine! I don't speak Swahili at all!
> 
> You can read more about Cassandra's story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra
> 
> Reverend Knapp's words are from the Pilot episode. Lachlan Fredericks and Grace Dixon are not mentioned as having been there when the spell was cast by Katrina and Reverend Knapp, but I think they'd need more help than just the two of them with getting Crane to where he was. And I also think the fact that Lachlan Fredericks and Grace Dixon's early, horrific deaths were due to their helping Katrina could also have stemmed back to their helping here as well.


	5. The Tablet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sad chapter. I made myself cry when I wrote it, which I honestly almost never do when I write things. So, just to warn you. :)
> 
> And I promise you that the tablet will have a far greater importance in this line of stories than it did on the show. 
> 
> I know I mentioned I would get to Abbie and her ancestral line, but I forgot about the tablet. So I needed to write that story before I could go further. :)

April 4, 1782

The day could not have been more perfect.

The sun sparkled in the sky, kissing the trees with its rays. Flowers bloomed in profusion all around the grounds of the Crane estate. The emerald green of the grass on the moors of their Scottish homeland put to shame even the most beautiful of the Irish isles.

A gentle breeze ruffled the flowering crabapple trees, sending an occasional flutter of pinkish-white petals to the ground.

It seemed almost cruel, the day being so beautiful and so fine. For truly, it should be gray and cold and desolate outside. Like their world had now become.

Isaiah Crane sat in a large, overstuffed chair in his father’s parlor, his normally serious demeanor even more stark and somber than usual. He glanced over at his brother, John.

John was, more often than not, smiling. He had an ebullient cheerfulness to him that lifted the spirits of all who encountered him. He’d been the only thing that had kept his father and him from drowning under the grief of first their mother’s death and then that of Louisa’s.

But this… _this_ …

A fresh wave of pain pulsed through Isaiah’s heart at the very thought of it. He was sixteen years his senior. Sixteen years. It should have been him. He was the oldest. He was the one who should have been buried under the ground first.

John hadn’t smiled in over a fortnight.

And John not smiling or laughing was something so foreign to him that it made the pain of his loss even greater. 

If he’d ever idly wondered what truly could bring John down from his perpetual, merry, laughing ways, thinking it near nigh impossible to even achieve, Isaiah now knew. Knew in a horrible, terrible way that made him curse himself for every time he’d ever even thought it.

The letter had arrived by special messenger two weeks hence, but it had taken months for it to arrive from the Colonies. 

They’d heard precious little of him after his defection to the colonists’ cause. Their father refused to hear mention of his name, and if any letters had reached him, he’d never spoken of it.

He himself had received two. 

One was a long letter about the reasons for his defection, full of the passion and vigor and excitement for the adventure ahead that was so very much his youngest brother. Isaiah hadn’t replied, but the letter, for all that it had broken his heart, was still tucked away safe in a locked drawer in his study. He hadn’t been able to turn it over to the army, and he hadn’t been able to burn it. Perhaps it was weak of him. But considering how his brother’s scrawl of a letter might now very well be all he had left of him…

Isaiah firmly broke off that avenue of thought.

The last missive from his brother was another lengthy one. There was nothing ever terse or to the point about Ichabod. 

His brother hadn’t tried again to defend his position. There was no talk of the war, of his rank or role in the colonial army, nor of America at all.

It was, almost, a love letter.

His young brother had poured out his love for his fair Katrina, told details of their meeting, their courtship, and their marriage, and spoke of how ardently he wanted John and him to love his wife as much as he did. How he hoped that one day, they’d be able to meet her for themselves.

She was an American and a Quaker. No connections to any sort of family of any importance in England, Scotland or even in America. She was certain to be beautiful. He knew that without his brother’s flowery description of his new sister. Ichabod’s handsome visage always did make it easy on him to attract the ladies to him like moths to a flame.

Even in his choice of wife, Ichabod had not been able to resist the different, the new, the strange. Always seeking the unknown, his brother was. Their father had arranged an eminently suitable, safe choice in Mary, their long-time neighbor’s only daughter. But Ichabod had not only turned away from England but from her as well.

And now his brother’s pretty, young American wife was a widow.

Isaiah shifted in his chair, wishing that a simple movement would ease the deep grief that seemed to permeate him to the point that he could barely breathe. 

The suffocating silence of the room only added to that pain. 

Each of them was suffering, and none of them knew how to cope with the pain. His brother, the turncoat, the traitor to the English crown, was still, after it all, their brother and his father’s son.

He looked over at his father, who looked every one of his two and eighty years, and his face gentled. “Father,” he said, his voice soft.

“They won’t send him home,” his father said, his voice hoarse. “He’ll be long buried by now.”

John jerked at his father’s words, almost as if the man had stabbed him. Isaiah exhaled before he nodded.

“No use in having a funeral,” his father continued stubbornly. “No one would come.”

Isaiah closed his eyes, willing the tears away, before he opened them again. He chided his father gently. “Really, Father.”

“I’d come,” John insisted, his voice broken and ragged.

His father slid a glance at John, the pain in his son’s tone twisting his visage into something unpleasant, aching and raw. “What could I have done?” he whispered. “Perhaps we spoiled him all too much. Maybe if I’d been firmer or not given him so much reign over the house. Maybe if Louisa hadn’t always been plying him with all those books he loved so much. Maybe he wouldn’t have taken on such radical ideas. Maybe…”

“Stop, Father. Stop.” Isaiah lifted pleading eyes to his father. “Ichabod was always going to be who he was. We wouldn’t have wanted him any other way.”

“But if I’d _done_ something,” his father choked out, “he’d not be dead and gone from us.”

John made a noise of distress.

“I can’t even see him one more time,” his father continued, almost as if they weren’t there. “He’s denied me even that.”

“We can give him a burial here, Father,” Isaiah interjected, his voice quiet but firm. “It needn’t be with a lot of pomp and ceremony. We three, Elizabeth, Margaret, the children…”

“…and Louisa’s family,” John added.

Isaiah’s brows came together in a frown. “Louisa has family still living? Her mother died last year. I thought she was the only one left.”

“There was her sister. I remember meeting her on one of my holidays from Oxford,” John replied.

“All right, then. We’ll include her as well.” Isaiah turned to his father. “We shall find a nice spot on the grounds. Somewhere in the sun where no one would…”

“No.”

“Father, I really must insist…”

“He’ll have a place in the family crypt,” his father continued, his tone stubborn and his blue eyes, so like Ichabod’s, narrowed and glaring. “He was still my son.”

Isaiah exchanged a glance with John, neither of them bothering to mention the horrible, angry tirade where their father had disowned Ichabod and told them both never to mention his name to him again.

But instead of wandering back into that fraught-with-danger area, Isaiah merely nodded. “The crypt it is.”

Two weeks later…

It had taken some time to arrange for their wives and children as well as Louisa’s sister, Jane, to travel to Scotland for the funeral.

It helped to have his beloved Elizabeth and their children with him. He knew John’s own grief had eased a little upon Margaret’s arrival with their two daughters.

The funeral was fairly simple and perfunctory. The local vicar was a good man and had not given them any difficulty about performing the ceremony. They’d all had their chance to say their farewells to their brilliant, sarcastic, big-hearted son and brother. They’d cried some and laughed a bit more at old stories. And in some ways, it was as if Ichabod himself was not truly gone from them. His presence seemed to be ever so much closer than it had since they’d first received news of his defection.

They all wanted to remember him as he was, with his twinkling blue eyes and his affectionate ways. And so they shared and reminisced and gave him as good a send-off as they could.

All in all, Isaiah thought, Ichabod would have loved it.

It didn’t explain, then, his sudden waking in the night after the funeral. He should have been resting easier, sleeping more contentedly in Elizabeth’s arms.

Instead, he found himself restless, drawn to the window that overlooked the elegant family crypt, searching for…for what? For his brother? For his tall, lanky brother who was the very image of his father and had the soul of his mother?

Isaiah stared out into the clear night, barely registering the play of the silver beams of light slithering through the bending trees. His eyes instead focused on a slight, cloaked figure heading toward the crypt, a bobbing lantern in one pale hand.

Frowning, Isaiah watched as the figure unlocked the door and disappeared into the crypt.

_No one would dare._

The thought of someone entering his family’s crypt and trying to desecrate his brother’s grave filled Isaiah with a righteous fury.

He grabbed his dressing robe and pulled on his boots impatiently before dashing out the door, down the stairs and out into the crisp night air.

His angry momentum got him all the way to the crypt before his mind had even a moment to slow down and consider what he was doing.

He wasn’t generally impulsive. John was the ever merry one. Ichabod was the dreamer. And he was the stolid, sensible Crane. The one who carefully considered every move before making one.

But his grief twisted with his anger and he burst into the crypt, his ire evident on his normally serene face. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “How dare you violate this place? How dare you commit such sacrilege on my brother’s grave?”

The figure turned, a startled expression on her wrinkled face. “Oh, Isaiah. You frightened me.”

Some of the ire dissipated as he saw the slight figure of Louisa’s sister. “Aunt Jane?” he asked, his expression suddenly unsure. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” She stopped then, inhaled and then looked at him. “It’s left to me, you see,” she said softly. “I never married. Never wanted to. I thought maybe if I didn’t, then the suffering would end with me.”

Isaiah’s brows came together. “I don’t understand. Suffering?”

“Louisa and I were planning on living our lives out peacefully. Just two old spinster sisters together.” Jane laughed a little, her hazel eyes sad in the remembering. “But then she met your father.” Jane lifted her gaze upward. “And that was that. ‘I can’t help the loving of him, Janie.,’ she said to me.” She swallowed before she continued, “And I loved her, so I wanted her happy. And she was so happy with your father. ‘He already has sons,’ she said. ‘He won’t need children, Janie. And I can love his boys as my own.’”

Jane ran a trembling hand down her face. “I knew what would come. I always knew. And it’s why I couldn’t see her anymore. I couldn’t watch her suffer.” She sniffed a little, her eyes watering. “It’s weak of me. I know it. I loved my sister, but I was weak.” She tried to smile. “And maybe that’s why the mantle comes through her and not through me.”

“I don’t understand,” Isaiah said finally, his ire long having vanished, leaving a sort of bewildered bemusement on the sharp lines of his face. 

“He isn’t dead, your brother,” she whispered.

Isaiah stiffened. “What?” he barked.

“He lingers in that veil between worlds,” she whispered. “Waiting.”

 _The woman’s mad._ The thought saddened him as he looked at her diminutive form. “Aunt Jane,” he started, keeping his voice as gentle as possible. “He truly is gone. The letter came from his wife, Katrina. She said…”

“I know what she said.” Jane interrupted him. “She wrote me, too.”

Isaiah gave her a strange look. “How could Katrina possibly know to write you? Did Ichabod even know of you? Or how to locate you? I didn’t remember you ever visiting when I was still at home. John said you came the first few times during the holidays when he was at Oxford, but Ichabod was still a small child then.”

“I haven’t seen or spoken to my nephew since he was a boy,” she said, regret etching her wrinkled face. “I should have prepared him the way my grandmother prepared me.”

“Prepared you? For what? I don’t understand.”

Jane didn’t answer his question. Instead, she pulled out a stone tablet from under her cloak. It was covered in some sort of ancient language. A pain lanced his heart as he thought of how eagerly Ichabod would have devoured that tablet, trying to solve its mysteries. “I need to put this in Ichabod’s tomb,” she said.

“What? Why?” Everything about the situation seemed ridiculous and strange. Jane was obviously not well. Her rambles didn’t make much sense. “Look, Aunt Jane. It’s late. We’ve all had a confounding, difficult day. Why don’t you come back with me to the house, and we can--?”

“No,” she said flatly. “Not before I put this in Ichabod’s tomb. He will have need of it.”

“Ichabod is dead, Aunt Jane,” Isaiah said, the deep weariness he felt echoing into his tone. “Wherever he is now, and I hope to God that he is right at this moment badgering the angels, he will never have use for that tablet.”

“He is the first witness,” she said, her voice firm. “Katrina confirmed what I already feared to be true.” She pointed at the tablet. “He is asleep—waiting for the second witness to appear.”

“Aunt Jane, really,” he said, his voice exasperated. 

She ignored him as she ran her finger down the edge of the tablet, until she found a small etched mark in the stone tablet. Slowly, she scraped the two pieces—for it was two pieces—of stone away from each other.

Underneath was a carving—a drawing, almost---of two people. One, lanky, tall with a beard holding a sword, and the other petite, obviously female, holding some sort of mace in her hand. The man in the carving was the very image of his brother.

“I don’t understand,” he breathed. “What is this?”

“He will need this,” she repeated. “It may help him find her.” Jane pointed at the woman in the carving. 

Isaiah did not recognize her. _Was she Ichabod’s Katrina?_

He must have spoken the words out loud instead of in his head, because Jane was shaking her head. “Katrina said she did what she could to protect him. But she does not know who the second witness is.” Jane reached forward and grabbed his arm. “Please, Isaiah. Please help me help him.”

To his dying day, Isaiah never was able to articulate why he accepted Jane’s absolutely insane story. He never understood what compulsion drove him to help her pry open the brass plate that bore his brother’s name nor why he remained silent when she pushed the two pieces of stone back together and placed it gently, reverently in the place where his brother’s body should have lain.

And he never spoke a word about the one impulsive thing he’d done in his life. The one page of foolscap on which he wrote his dead brother a missive. A note he folded and sealed and placed later on top of that tablet before he re-sealed his brother’s grave and never returned.

He died many years later, never seeing his brother again.

But the hope that Ichabod would one day return never truly left him. His will stated that any man ever asking to gain entry to Ichabod’s tomb should never be prevented from doing so. His insistence on this point troubled and dismayed his son and grandson, but they honored his wishes.

And the family crypt one day opened for him, where he was buried next to his beloved brother. 

The sealed note remained in Ichabod’s grave, untouched. The note that had four simple words written on it:

_We loved you still._


	6. The Sentinels:  The Oracle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of things:
> 
> I debated a lot about whether to write my version of the events that happened to Katrina and Jeremy Crane as well as Jacob and Grace Dixon. Since that story is pretty firmly told in the show as to what happened to those four people, I think I’m going to leave it stand as it is. (So, what happened in the show is what happened in the past to them.) And the same goes for Mary, the family choice for Ichabod to marry, and Abraham, in his becoming the Horseman of Death.
> 
> I will likely change up some things when it comes to their _present_ situation—changing the convoluted, not-well-thought out plots of the show when I get to those. :) But you can assume that those events of the past stay the same.
> 
> Then, on to Abbie and her family. I went and looked at the family history chart they used in the show for the Dixon-Foster family. My head is exploding even more so than with Ichabod’s family history.
> 
> The family tree shows five generations between Grace Dixon and Abigail and Jenny Mills. The commonly accepted family generation duration (parent to child) is somewhere between 20-25 years. Unless all women in Abbie’s family had men who didn’t marry until very late in life and women who were in childbirth in their 40s, there is no way that family tree from the show can be complete and accurate. And considering the fact that life expectancy was not much higher than the 40s-50s up through the early 20th century, this seems extremely unrealistic that Grace Dixon was only Abbie’s great-great-great-great-grandmother.
> 
> So I’m going to assume there are more generations that are not mentioned in that family history, and that the family history that is found only mentions specific members of Abbie’s family line who have a paranormal “gift” of some kind: Isaac Dixon, his daughter, “M”, her daughter, Grace Foster, her son, Jacob Roberts, and his daughter, Lori Mills.
> 
> Each brings a necessary piece of the witness DNA through the line to Abbie.
> 
> There isn’t a lot told about any of Abbie’s line, save her mother and Grace Dixon, so a lot of this is conjecture on my part. 
> 
> But these next few chapters will be the stories of the Sentinels, the people in Abbie's line with various extraordinary gifts.

Foresight was a curse.

In his thirty years of life, his mind had been a whirlwind of horror.

Isaac Dixon threw himself into his back-breaking labor with the gusto of a man running screaming from the dreams that plagued him.

It had been that way all of his life. As long as he could remember, he had had premonitory visions of death. 

His first had been at the tender age of four. He’d had a dream that had him shouting out in terror—a dream of a man trampled by his own team of horses.

Two nights later, a handsome young farmer, John Taylor, was about to help his sweetheart out of her family’s carriage, and the horses became spooked by something nearby, taking off with the lady half hanging out of the carriage. He died, trampled under the horses’ hooves, in an attempt to stop the runaway carriage.

The visions came fairly frequently after that. Isaac knew which children wouldn’t survive the ravages of smallpox, and which soldiers would not return from the battlefield.

His knowledge made him both a source of awe and one of hatred. By the time he was an adult, Isaac had learned to keep his revelations to himself. Nothing he ever did prevented the eventualities of what he saw in his dreams.

And once he’d determined that alcohol made the strange dreams brighter and more vivid, he swore off of it, never to take a drop again.

He and his wife were free, if you could call it that. Lachlan Fredericks had made certain that all the black people who had worked for him had their papers in order and were considered free in all legal terms.

But he wasn’t free. Not truly. His mind never let him free of the prison of his visions.

Isaac had foreseen the deadly fire that would lick its way through his parents’ home and claim the lives of everyone who lived there. 

Jeremy Crane’s abilities with fire were as little under his control as Isaac’s dreams were under his. They’d bonded over that—the strange abilities they didn’t want, understand or know how to handle. They’d bonded, even as Isaac knew that Jeremy would be the cause of his parents’ demise.

Sleepy Hollow had spirited Jeremy away, even with his urgent demands that they were making a mistake in taking him. His mind had flooded with images of death and destruction, evil smiles to replace the soft, genuine ones he’d known on Jeremy’s face.

It was all to no avail. A black man’s word—even a freed black man—meant nothing. Jeremy was taken away, screaming and crying out for him, breaking Isaac’s heart.

“I don’t understand how you can even think…” his wife began, her low voice shaking with anger. “He _killed_ your parents, Isaac. He…”

“Enough,” he said flatly. Isaac shook his head. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what they’ve just done.”

Claire huffed. “You saw something? Isaac? What? One of your crazy visions again?”

Isaac shook his head again. He watched until the carriage disappeared from sight before he turned on his heel to head back to the small piece of land behind their little cottage. Land given to them by Lachlan Fredericks in his generosity. Land that provided hard work to give his brain a respite from the horrible visions that tormented his every moment.

But all of it changed in one turbulent, stormy night.

The wind rattled at the windows, the candles flickered, and the moans of his wife in the bedroom echoed throughout their small cottage.

The midwife had come, and their child was making its way into the world.

Isaac had seen his wife’s death the moment he’d met her and taken her hand in his. She’d had a cloud of white hair that surrounded her beautiful face, and her peaceful visage as she left the earth had, for once, soothed his tortured soul.

He had no fears of losing his wife to the perils of childbirth.

He was, however, sick with worry for his child.

The oppression around the little cottage felt almost demonic. Another scream from his wife tore through his soul, and Isaac found himself falling to his knees. “God, please,” he begged. There was no elegance in the raw words ripped from somewhere deep within him. Just deep, terrified pleading. “Please, God. Please.”

The rattling grew fiercer with the wind howling about him. The noise from outside coupled with the pain and agony in his wife’s shrieks sank into him. Tension ratcheted up his body, and his head began to pound. But still, throughout it all, Isaac continued his frenzied cries to God.

And then, over it all, he heard the beautiful cry of a baby—loud, strong and clear.

All went still.

Isaac stumbled to his feet, his ears still ringing, even in the sudden, strange silence. He hurried to the bedroom, fumbling with the knob on the door, and opened the door.

His wife looked wan and exhausted, but her eyes gleamed with a light that he’d never seen in her before. Her face was wreathed with smiles.

She had never looked more beautiful to him.

“Come meet our daughter, Isaac,” she said.

Cautiously, Isaac stepped forward, his face a mixture of alarm and awe as he looked at the tiny, small human in his wife’s arms.

The baby blinked her eyes open, and for one moment, seemed to stare with a strange fixation on him. 

Emotion surged through him. He wanted, more than anything, to touch the little one—to revel in and feel the softness of this person he and his wife had made.

But the fear of seeing the manner of his newborn daughter’s death made him reluctant.

A stubborn, very familiar look was crossing his wife’s face as she began to notice his hesitation.

Isaac repressed a sigh, girded his shoulders, and then reached out for the baby. 

Claire settled her into his arms, and Isaac steeled himself for what he would see.

A moment passed. And then another. And another.

Nothing.

Isaac blinked in surprise. He looked down at his daughter. For a brief moment, a flash of a look he’d only ever seen on his mother’s face crossed the baby’s. An old, old look of a weary, world-worn soul.

And his heart broke.

“Not her, God,” he whispered. “Oh, please, no.” Isaac nestled the baby, tears in his dark eyes. He rocked the baby, speaking in low, soft murmurs.

“Isaac?” his wife asked, a fearful look crossing her face.

He shook his head, continuing to rock the baby, kissing her and murmuring.

In the years after that, every once in a while, Claire would catch him watching their daughter, Mercy, with a sad, almost grief-stricken look in his dark eyes. She’d tried pressing him on the subject, but he refused to respond.

What he never told her was that the visions had stopped the moment Mercy had arrived in the world.

Isaac had been unable to see her death when he’d held her that first time. And he’d known. He had known that whatever “gift” he’d had was gone. Whatever special ability he'd inherited from his mother had now been given to his daughter.

His torture was over.

His daughter’s was just beginning.


	7. The Sentinels:  The Warrior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, it's been a zillion years since I posted anything on this story. There are reasons for that, which I won't get into now, but I have slated today as a writing day, to attempt to push a little forward on a lot of languishing stories I have.
> 
> Thank you for your encouragement and notes here and elsewhere. I really appreciate it. It's been a very busy, hectic, crazy year for me. Good, in many ways, but it's kept me from writing much.
> 
> Hope you all are well and still interested in and crazy about these characters from that insane TV show. :)

She slid through their parlor almost as the silvery slip of moonlight streamed in through the slits in between the dark, heavy curtains that shrouded the windows. Beautiful, breathtaking, and ephemeral. Nothing he could grasp in his hands.

It was always thus.

He had known since he had first laid eyes on her as a child, that Mercy had been designed and fashioned for him.

The intense connection he felt with her was like no other he'd ever known.

It was a curse, at times, to be blessed with the gift of sight--of seeing the true nature of people and how the progression of that nature would lead that person down their life's path.

He had tried to explain it to her once. It was as if there was a long ribbon weaving in front of the person. Glimpses of forks in the path and choices made. Small decisions that seemed unimportant when made that became life-altering when added with others, making the path choices seem almost inevitable.

He couldn't change the paths. It was not the way of his people to interfere. It was just knowledge. Knowledge that helped them on their path to greater enlightenment. To learn and grow from the mistakes of others. To avoid making one's path in the pattern of those doomed to destruction.

Mercy didn't live that way.

And it was her reckless passion for the need to change the world, to put the wayward travelers back on the correct path again, that had drawn him to her from the very first.

He'd thrown away all the training and discipline and direction from his parents, his family and his people. He had pursued her with a single-minded passion unheard of by his people. There was no rational consideration. No consulting of the elders. It had been pure, blinding need to meld his path with hers.

And the need to find some way to change her path before its irrevocable ending.

Mercy stopped upon seeing him, her gloved hand clasped around the knob of the door.

"Mercy," he whispered. For a whisper was the only voice allowed in a night such as this.

Her beautiful face softened. "Return to bed, my love."

"'Tis impossible to slumber without you there." Slowly, almost as if he were attempting to calm a shying horse, he crossed the room, his bare feet padding across the pegged floor.

She watched him come, not fleeing but with a stature so impatient--so ready to leave--such a need to be out fighting the good fight that he almost smiled.

Almost.

For he knew, if she walked out that door, that it would be the last he ever saw of her.

"Return with me," he said softly, entwining his hands in the riot of black curls that spiraled down her back. Curls she often fought to contain in the neat knots and twists the women of their era wore. Only with him was her hair ever like this--wild, uncontained and free.

Despite his growing panic and the disquiet in his soul, he couldn't help but feel that ever-simming presence of desire for her burble up in him.

She was his everything. His muse. His siren. His heart. His soul.

And she was about to make her final choice.

The one to abandon her husband and daughter for the sake of the world.

"You know I cannot," she whispered in return, leaning her cheek against the warmth of his hand. "That sword could mean everything to us. A chance to defeat this evil once and for all!"

He tried to open his mouth to tell her. To tell her of the horror that would be the last thing she would see. That she would never find the sword she came to seek. That she knew not the way that had been dictated so long ago.

That despite her desperate longings, she was not the second witness.

But as always, the punishment of his family bound him. The curse that he never again would be able to warn another of their path to avert them from it. He married where his heart lay instead of where his heritage and legacy dictated. And as a result, he was doomed to know and unable to warn.

Cassandra at least had the option of trying, even though she was not listened to. He had no such luxury.

The words choked in his throat. His mind screamed, trying to let them escape. Every muscle in his body tensed with the all-encompassing desire to find any way to tell her what lie in wait for her outside that door.

But nothing came out.

Something of his turmoil reached her, however, and she stared up at him for a long moment. What she saw, he never knew. But somehow, some way, a ripple of knowledge transferred between them.

"I must try," she whispered, her voice a hoarse rasp in the silence.

He did not respond. He couldn't.

She bit her lip then, and within moments, she flew to him, and he to her, her petite body climbing his and her mouth sealing against his with a fervency he'd never felt from her before.

Their last joining was furious, passionate and desperate.

As she found her release, his heart broke.

Even with such a love as theirs, it was not enough. Not enough to quench the warrior fire in her.

He brooded, his soul aching as he watched her fix her clothing. His own nakedness was something he paid no mind to. All he was consumed with was her leavetaking.

Her hand returned to the doorknob, and this time, she turned it.

The door swung open easily under her touch, and she stepped a foot out into the darkness outside.

At that moment, their daughter's cry burst out into the night.

He mutely pleaded with her as he stood, naked--both physically and emotionally--before her.

"See to her," she said softly. "Tell her I love her more than the moon loves the night."

" _Mercy!_ " The groan was from his inner soul. Desperate, raw and aching. He was now nothing without her.

"I love you more than the sun in its heat and light," she whispered.

"And I you. More than the stars in the dark night sky." Harsh agony coated the familiar words which slipped with ease from his tongue all the same.

She smiled once and then turned away, disappearing shortly into the darkness.

He stood staring after her for a long, long time before he went to their crying daughter.

He pulled her out of her cradle and sat with her, rocking her in his arms, not even trying to soothe her hiccuping sobs.

Waiting. Just waiting.

His baby's cry stopped at the very moment he felt the snap of his wife's ribbon path.

Ever frozen in time, never to go forward, never to return.

His own heart turned to stone at that moment.

The world could go to hell.

He was already there.


End file.
